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Archive for May, 2011

Kuggen is nestled in among Lindholmen’s big office buildings, like a colorful blossom surrounded by gray leaves. Its form and color are not immediately revealed. The round building looks different from every direction. The upper floors project out over the lower—more on the south side than on the north, so that the building partially shades itself when the sun is high in the sky. A rotating screen shades the top floors, following the sun’s path around the building. These details change the building’s character from one side to another, and over the course of the day. Finally, its brocade of glazed terracotta panels takes on different appearances depending on our viewing angle and the changing daylight conditions.

This project is part of a competition for a low cost mixed type housing development in the North East of France. It is a social development aimed towards the elderly and young families. The provision of individual housing and group housing meets the requirements of the urban project and aims to maximize the potential of the site. It is inspired by the traditional brick architecture in the surrounding area. Just like the traditional houses the proposal has tried to visually break down the scale of the development through the use of varying roofs and heights, to offer a more humane and people friendly rhythm. The heights of the buildings and their distribution on the site also follow a logical environment to maximize natural lighting, ventilation and views. This difference in height creates a dynamic urban pace on the street. The roofs are taken from the surrounding area and have been reworked sustainably, their design visually creates a real impression from the street, and captures solar energy fulfilling its functions and creating a contemporary environment.

A dilapidated, vacant, 60’s era manufacturing building on a one-acre block in an historic urban neighborhood was replaced with 35 townhouses in five buildings. The project responds to its urban context with separate buildings oriented perpendicular to the street, continuing the rhythm of the adjacent houses. This arrangement creates alternating garden courts and auto courts, separating vehicular and pedestrian access and bringing green spaces to the interior of the block.

Few Jewish communities used to surpass the one of Mainz in importance and tradition. During the Middle Ages being the major center of religious teaching, this importance can be traced back to a series of influential Rabbis, especially Gershom ben Judah (960 to 1040) whose teachings and legal decisions had impact on Judaism at large. His wisdom was deemed to be so large that he was given the name “ מאור הגולה “ – ‘Light of Diaspora’. The new Jewish Community Center of Mainz attempts to draw out this tradition.

PROJECT INTRODUCTION: Black Rock Studio is a 3150 SF loft/studio which houses an entry courtyard, gallery, and meeting space on the ground floor with studio/work spaces on the second level. Black Rock Studio creates a dynamic relationship between building and the streetscape on the south and the canal on the north. The transparency of the north and south façade through large sliding glass doors create strong links between the studio and the canal to the public way. The loft/studio space transforms over the course of the day as the daylight moves and washes down the side walls of the space. Slot skylights run the length of the studio creating a floating ceiling effect and contributing to the balanced day-lighting.

Enoki rome ecocity is a project born from the desire of investigate the possibilities for future housing. The achievements in material science, energy conservation, aerodynamic and environmental solutions allow designers to experience new housing typologies that can be housed in self sufficient and highly innovative building envelopes. Paying homage to the new millennium and to the city of Rome with the intention of stimulating and supporting the contemporary city.

The Felix Nussbaum Haus originally designed by Daniel Libeskind, completed in the summer of 1998, was his first completed project. The new extension also designed by Libeskind opened in May 2011 and provides an entrance hall with museum shop as well as learning center on the upper floor. Attached to the Kunstgeschichtliche Museum and connected to the FNH by a glass bridge it transforms the existing buildings into a more cohesive complex with the new extension acting as a gateway. As part of the transformation, the lower floor of the KGM has been redesigned to include a flexible lecture hall and event space, caterings facilities, cloak rooms and restrooms for both buildings.

This project is conceived as a series of concrete retaining walls and escarpments that traverse and cascade down a steeply sloped site approximately 700 feet deep and 300 feet wide. In response to the steep + diagonal slope of the existing topography, the site / building strategy is to deploy a series of straight walls that act as “jetties” into the landscape and respond as a counter-force to. As these walls begin to interact with the landscape they modulate and redistribute the sloping terrain into a series of terraces and gardens that spill and slide past one another.

In the beginning of the 1970s an urban masterplan was devised for Cologne neighborhood of Bayenthal, which has never been applied since then. It was a urbanistic stillborn; the desperate and utterly misdirected attempt to react to a then pressing urban problem: the exodus from the city. Since the early sixties young families moved out of inner city areas into the suburbs and the villages surrounding the cities in order to fulfill their dreams of that uprising prosperous middle class.

The villa is located in the dune forest in Bloemendaal The Netherlands. The most important feature of the villa is the orientation to the surrounding nature. Volumes are rotated towards each other creating beautiful views into the forrest. The windows on the ground floor create the relation with the rabbit, on the first floor the views are straight into the trees where you can admire the squirrel, the third level raises from the tree level and you can enjoy the open sky with the birds. The relation with the outdoor space is not only visual but also physical. Bij shifting the building volumes from each other each room has a outdoor terrace.